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Clarice Ashworth Francone medical illustration collection, Collection Number 1999-002, Oregon Health & Science University, Historical Collections & Archives
The Francone Papers consist of preliminary sketches in pencil, arranged by region of the body, plus finished drawings for
After the death of Clarice Ashworth Francone, a representative of the Francone estate offered the materials in this collection to the Oregon Health Sciences University Library. Heather Rosenwinkel, a member of the Library staff, acquired them from the Francone residence and transferred them to the OHSU Library. The collection was initially processed by the OHSU Library Special Collections staff in the fall of 1999.
Clarice Margaret Ashworth was born March 24, 1901 in Rochester, Minnesota. After graduating from high school, she worked at the Mayo Clinic in the art department, and then studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. She spent her second year of medical illustration study at Johns Hopkins University, training under Max Bröedel, considered the father of medical illustration. After another stint at the Mayo Clinic, Ashworth moved to Oregon in 1929. She worked as a freelance illustrator and, in 1936, began working part-time at the University of Oregon Medical School, eventually becoming head of the Medical Illustration Department. For many years, Francone was the only medical illustrator in Oregon.
In addition to preparing charts and diagrams for medical students and presentations by physicians, Francone illustrated a number of books, for some of which she is credited as co-author. Perhaps the best known of these is an anatomy and physiology textbook,
Much of Francone's work consists of half-tones done with carbon crayon on Ross board, with ink and white highlights added to sharpen images. She also prepared a number of pen and ink charts and diagrams.
Before retiring from the University of Oregon Medical School in 1969, Francone was asked to contribute samples of her work to the Archives of Medical Visual Resources at the Countway Library, Harvard University. Francone died in September, 1981.
Digitized images from this collection are available in